Wow! Godot is a go. Ran lights tonight for tech rehearsal -- we're costumed and propped (both Eliza and I bought carrot and parsnips -- no turnips avail, and they look better anyway, surprisingly like white carrots -- at The Good Life, unbeknownst to one another).
Also bought a cooked chicken, but Janet likes the idea of plastic cheeseburgers, so we'll go with that....
Oh, yes, and the music and the acting. Sounds good, looks good. Balence just about right, with computer and no Keisuke tonight, but am sure he will fit right in on live piano. Lighting is dark and spare, everyone is finding appropriate business and moments -- not many slip-ups. Harriet took some pictures with the new camera -- despite having to take action shots and shooting against unfinished backdrop (we only had half a black box -- will finish on Wednesday) and not realizing that zoom was a possibility, the first (7 again!) shots turned out pretty well -- one of Meghan good enough to use as a promo...
Had a ball running the lights for Godot -- kept fairly narrow pools-of-light focus on whatever was happening -- pretty much improvised and just made it up as we went along. Tree is a giant fan, Pozzo's rope a bright orange extension cord matching P's vest;
Lucky in brown shirt and barefoot;
Vladimir in brown jacket; Estragon in blue shirt and pretty much matching socks;
Boy in forest green pants, shirt, jacket -- now more leprechan than angel... All other costuming black, with the shiny, cheap bowler hats...
Lisa Prosek's Jakob borrowed the black boxes from Goat Hall, which we were using as the mound, and has not returned them -- so we switched to a small raked platform (sloping up toward center stage) covered with a black drape, which is actually much better visually and dramatically (superior to have Lucky deliver his speech and Estragon sleep on the bias). Nothing else on set, as per Beckett's direction -- although the situation we inherited from the Little Night Music production of quite some time back has elevations at extreme stage right and left, which we use for Estragon's scoping of the situation, and for the Boy's two appearances (stage right only).
Bianca and Harriet checked out the show, and liked it very much. Cast in great voice and both funny and disturbing, as should be.... Lea particulalry likes the Act I twisted arpeggiated octave substitution blues ("Thank You Gentlemen," as Pozzo and Lucky depart) and the Act II "You Again," with it's funky looping progressive revelation.... Janet feels the opera feels inevitabably springs from the play.... Bianca wanted more... Harriet said it bespoke of artistic genius. Gee.... Of course we have to pull it off now for audiences...
Even the cheesy disco ball effect works for the rising of the moon in each act. Cue for its removal iboth times is the "Well, shall we go?" / "Yes, let's go" routine.
Amazed that most of my note for the cast were dramatic ones, rather than purely musical ones -- understand now why stage directors usually had more to say than I did after dress rehearsals -- I used to figure it was because I was busy conducting, but perhaps the real reason is that by "hell" week, the music will come off best when the stagecraft is well in place.
There was some other good singing previous to this, in John Partridge's music, featuring Harriet, Kat, Lea, Bianca, and whoops! suddenly her name escapes me -- she reined in the rain of Brian Holmes's The Fashion God (on Hurricane Katrina and FEMA fashionista head Michael Brown) last year...
Yet before, Harriet and I had one of our sunny, windblown fetes at Connecticut Yankee (another gorgeously clear N. Cal. day, even in SF) -- split a cheesesteak + house red and a coffee specialty drink known as an Improper Bostonian.....
